Sample Sources
The sources below are those contained in our three curated collections—covering themes of Passover, Gender Roles, and Holocaust Resistance. They represent a fraction of the thousands of sources that will be available when the full site launches in 2024.
Etlekhe verter oyf mame-loshn / A Few Words in the Mother Tongue
lemoshl: for example
di kurve the whore
a woman who acknowledges her passions
di yidene the Jewess the Jewish woman
ignorant overbearing
let’s face it: every woman is one
di yente the gossip…
New Sheets
I won’t be around forever, Mother said.
One day I’m going to die, so I might
as well nag you a little bit more,
while I have the chance. And when
I’m dead you’ll have to rely on someone else
to tell…
Acher
It was like this in the garden:
Ben Azzai looked and died,
Ben Zoma looked and went mad;
Akiba and I went forth in peace,
but they said I cut down the young plants.
I said that one is two…
Ivory Relief of a Woman at a Window
Ivory relief of a woman at a window, Arslan Tash, Syria, ninth–eighth century BCE.
Dancing Musician
On this clay plaque from Dan, from the Late Bronze (Canaanite) period, a man is playing a lute while dancing. The position of the performer’s legs shows that he is doing a lively dance.
Seal with Four-winged Uraeus
This seal, found at the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem, shows a uraeus or upright cobra with four wings. Modeled on the black-necked cobra that applies its venom both by biting and spitting, it was…
The Sisters Rosensweig
Merv:Sara, can I have my shirt? I’ve got a lunch date with the rabbi of Dublin.Sara:Mervyn, you came all the way to Queen Anne’s Gate. Please sit a minute.Tess:Sit down, Merv. I’ll get your shirt. Win…
Evening in Basel
You won’t find the restaurant in the guidebooks, which is a pity. The owner—he was tall and wearing a sport jacket—greeted us at the door. Our table was waiting in the corner.
“And the food is quite…
Your Land, Your Country
What, actually, am I doing here?
I owe myself, and perhaps others, an answer to this question. What, actually, am I doing here? Why do I go on a clear morning to Levinsky, why in zigzags, stopping…
1949, the First Israelis
Itzhak Refael once warned his colleagues on the Jewish Agency Executive that if they insisted on “regulating” the immigration quotas only the immigration from North Africa would remain for it could…
The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949
In the course of 1948 and the first half of 1949, a number of processes definitively changed the physical and demographic face of Palestine. Taken collectively, they steadily rendered…
The State of Israel in Jewish Public Thought: The Quest for Collective Identity
At the same time, let it be pointed out that this call for a new Hibbat Zion is directed towards the idea rather than the movement, since the historical Hibbat Zion was a movement which failed and an…